Items tagged with consumer rights
If you've ever been late on paying a bill, it's unlikely that you ever thought that you were running the risk of being publicly shamed about your shortcomings. That said, whether you're late for a good reason or not, business is business, and your business with a service provider is generally intended to be kept private and not loosely for public knowledge. However, for a few unfortunate individuals, one Canadian cable TV provider doesn't see things quite the same way. Recently, Senga Services, which is located in Canada's Northwest Territories, decided to begin posting the names of customers that had overdue payments to its Facebook page. As some of these late payments started at...
Read more...
And now we cannot even trust critics and reviewers! Jay Gentile, a man based in California who is said to be the operator of a number of sites that sell 4-star and 5-star reviews to Amazon sellers (among them buyazonreviews.com and buyreviewsnow.com) is the target of a lawsuit filed by Amazon in an effort by the mega-retailer to crack down on fake reviews. Other "John Does" also believed to be involved in such practices are alluded to in the suit as well. Filed Wednesday in King County Superior Court in Washington state, the Amazon lawsuit accuses Gentile and the John Does of trademark infringement, false advertising and violations of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act and the Washington...
Read more...
The House Oversight Committee wants to put the kabosh on abusive debt collection practices by wireless service providers. It is launching a probe, lead by committee chairman Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), into a contract clause that forces customers to waive their rights to sue and instead agree to forced arbitration. With forced arbitration, the parties agree that they will abide by the decision of the arbitrator, no matter what that decision is. The probe is an extension of a similar investigation by Kucinich's Domestic Policy Subcommittee into the credit card industry. Last week, the 16-month-long probe resulted in nine banks removing forced arbitration for debt collection, seven of them dropping...
Read more...
